Class Reunion

Well, I'm now definitely officially old. I'm just after having my 10-year college reunion. 10 years, Jesus. Where did the time go?

Was a fairly good event, as these things go. Met up with Eamonn in Town for lunch, then headed out to the college a bit early so we could take a look around. The atrium and the canteen pretty much looked the same as it did when we were there, but after that, it looked like a totally different place. when we were there, there were 2 buildings in the college, plus the gym & the Dome (the campus bar) Now there are 6. And even of the two we had, one was unrecognizable. What used to be the library is now more lecture rooms, and the D corridor is now admin offices for the school of business rather than the computer rooms we used to spend our time in. We pretty much had the whole place to ourselves wandering around, as it was the last day of the exams and the place was deserted.

The official reunion itself started at 4 with a drinks reception in the Tourism & Leisure building, which now occupies what used to be a football pitch in my time. Me & Eamonn were one of the first in there, so we settled in with a drink and watched ppl come in. Apparently there were a lot of reunions on, for 10, 15, 25 and 30 year classes (obviously the 20-year ppl never bothered replying), so there were maybe 200 there in total. Out of our graduating class of about 80 tho, there were only 6 that turned up, including myself.

Once everyone was in and settled with at least a few drinks under our belts, there was a small bit of speechifying, followed by a quick tour of a few of the new bits of the college (which I'd seen already). Our "tour guide" was Paul Barry, who used to be head of our department but was now something big in the applied mathematics dept. After the tour, we had a surprisingly decent meal in the Gallery restaurant, one of the new bits of the college. Place is a far cry from the canteen we used to have to put up with - even had a pizza/pasta counter and a smoothie bar! After the meal, we all repaired over to The Dome, which was also twice the size it used to be (which was disappointing, it didn't feel like the place we were so used to). After a few pints in there, it ws into town to Geoffs, which we'd figured out was the only bar we used to go to that wasn't either renamed, remodeled, under new management or (in the case of 2 places) had been totally razed to the ground and rebuilt! So, we stayed there for a few more pints and went our separate ways again around 1am.

It was a good day, but was a bit depressing in ways It was good to be able to wander around the college and recall stuff like "remember when mick duggan brought the pint of guinness into the computer room during rag week?", but it was a bit of a shock to the system to see how much the place had changed. Also, the turn-out was a bit disappointing, 6 pl out of 80? I knew when I'd signed up for it back in early april that there weren't many going, and I know everyone has their own lives to lead and all, and that some ppl were living too far away to be able to make it, but still, a 10 year anniversary isn't something that crops up every day, and I know of at least 5-6 people from the class that are still around waterford that could probably easily have made it. Also, the people that did turn, up, with the exception of Eamonn, weren't really people I would have hung out with much in college, they were in different classes to me in 1st & 2nd year and most had done the commercial stream rather than the industrial stream when the classes split in 3rd year. I'm not saying that we didn't get on, but there were ppl I would have seen a lot more of in college that didn't come.

Well, at least it wasn't a secondary school reunion - altho if we have those, it'll be 15 years next year. The only reason I'd go to one of those would be to see how many of the fuckers I went to school with have ended up stuck on the family farm, in prison or as single parents on the dole. I could count the no of ppl from my Leaving Cert class that I wouldn't mind seeing again on the fingers of one hand, just about.

(update)

I was tidying out my press there today as well, and I found this tucked inside an old college prospectus....



Damn, that brings back memories! Am not sure what happened my face tho....